


Miles to Go

by annaliesegrace



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Family, post ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 23:57:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17877230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaliesegrace/pseuds/annaliesegrace
Summary: ...before I sleep.They worry about each other, even if they don't realize it.





	Miles to Go

**Author's Note:**

> Motion to call Magnum and Higgins "Miggy".
> 
> Partially cause a player on Magnum's beloved Tigers nickname is Miggy. And it also works if you combine Magnum and Higgy. 
> 
> They two are really growing on me, which I really enjoy in a show, especially Higgins, they are "softening" her character a bit but leaving in that bite she has with Magnum, I love it.

The house felt…lonely.  
  
It didn’t make any kind of sense, it wasn’t like Magnum lived in the main house with Juliet and Kumu, and while she didn’t keep tabs on him like a child, Juliet usually knew if he was on the property or not. This evening she was just acutely aware of his absence.  
  
Wandering the kitchen, she couldn’t seem to put a finger on why it was bothering her so much, why the darkness of the guesthouse set her nerves on edge.  
  
He was being well cared for at the hospital.  
  
After being shot by his ex-fiancée.  
  
Juliet sat at the edge of the pool and sunk her feet into the cool water, focused on the dark night sky trying to center her thoughts.  
  
Maybe that was it; while there was no love lost between the two of them, she had started to respect Magnum, care even for his well-being. The terror of seeing him lying on the highway, bleeding profusely had…surprised her a little. It was more than just concern for another human-  
  
“You ok?”  
  
Kumu’s voice pulled her out of her introspection and her head turned to the other woman (a small part of her brain chastised her for allowing Kumu to walk up undetected).  
  
“Sorry, what?” she asked, clearly distracted.  
  
Kumu frowned and sat on a lounge chair to her right.  
  
“I asked if you were ok…”  
  
“Oh, yes,” she smiled slightly though it didn’t feel genuine even to her. “Fine, thank you.” She paused then said ruefully, “I wasn’t shot tonight.”  
  
“Ahhh, and there it is. Worried about Thomas?”  
  
There was something behind the question she couldn’t quite pinpoint, not accusation, maybe curiosity? “Of course. I don’t hate the man.”  
  
“Never said you did,” Kumu said and narrowed her eyes. “He gets under your skin, doesn’t he? All charming and sorta hapless and the next thing you know…you care about the guy.”  
  
Juliet stared at the other woman, how had she so succulently put into words what she couldn’t?  
  
But she deflected a little. “He is most certainly not hapless, you don’t get as far as he did in the Navy being clueless.”  
  
Kumu shrugged. “No, but he certainly plays it that way sometimes, doesn’t he?”  
  
Juliet’s mind started spinning, replaying his endless requests for help or her laptop, looping her in even when she pushed back and insisted she wanted nothing to do with his investigations. Finding her necklace. “Yes…yes, he does. Oh, I am such an ass.”  
  
Kumu just smiled silently.  
  
“He figured out a while back I was MI6, I don’t…I don’t know when. But when Nuzo was kidnapped he came clean and since then he’s been dragging me into his cases…” Tears started to prick at the corner of her eyes. Oh, she had been such a bitch and he’d…  
  
“And?”  
  
“It felt…good. Investigating, helping people, helping him. Doing something…exciting. It got the blood pumping again, so to speak.” Juliet looked at her. “I was happy just being the property manager, it was what I wanted after leaving MI6, a quiet life. At least…I thought it was. And then Magnum happened and despite my protests and complaining…he somehow knew I wanted to help, even if I didn’t realize it yet myself. And I was just so…mean to him.”  
  
“You were protecting yourself,” Kumu said quietly.  
  
“From what?” she laughed. “Magnum?”  
  
“From getting involved. From…caring.”  
  
Juliet looked back into the night sky.  
  
That was the feeling, she cared about Magnum, worried about him. And it scared her a little, because the last time she cared didn’t end well.  
  
Kumu stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. “Just admit he’s wormed his way into your life, it’ll be easier.”  
  
Then the other woman disappeared into the house, leaving her with increasingly frantic thoughts of the nature of her relationship with Magnum.  
  
They were friendly, they cared for each other to a degree. She did not doubt for a second he would do anything she asked if it was important to her (the Viper situation had taught her that).  
She had been in a near panic when they realized he was gone and even more so on that bridge, holding his bleeding, unconscious body until EMS showed up. For a second she wondered what Rick must have thought of the scene, Magnum bleeding out and her holding him as tight as she dared. Even the memory made her chest tighten a little.  
  
No, it was too much to think about tonight, she was overtired, emotionally raw and not fully equipped to analyze her feelings about Thomas Magnum.  
  
Sighing she pulled her feet from the pool and stood up, staring once again at the dark guesthouse, and guilt for how she’d treated him pulled at her gut once more. Silently she went back into the house, locked up and headed to bed, though sleep did not come easily.  
  
\---------------  
  
Everything hurt.  
  
Literally every part of his body ached, and the bullet wound was the central source, even with the pain meds. He’d woken up to a dark room, those same meds clearly wearing off.  
Annoyed, he tried rolling onto his right side to get more comfortable, surprised to see Rick hunched over in the small chair near the window, sleeping.  
  
As he settled into position, a sharp pain had him hissing a low, “Shit.”  
  
“Magnum?” Rick asked sleepily and sat up.  
  
“It’s fine, go back to sleep, man.”  
  
“Want me to call the nurse?” Rick asked.  
  
“No, I don’t want more meds. Why are you here?”  
  
Rick looked at him. “Keeping an eye on you.”  
  
Magnum frowned. “In case what? Hannah comes back?”  
  
“Well, she did try to kill you, and is in the wind,” Rick said, like it was completely obvious.  
  
Thomas shifted again, this time so he could face his friend and turned the light by the bed on the lowest setting, flooding the room with soft yellow light. “There is that,” he mumbled.  
  
Rick shifted a little and looked down at his hands. “Was it weird…seeing her again?”  
  
Magnum thought about that, it had been a mixture of emotions when he saw Hannah for the first time since Afghanistan. Part of him was still so very angry and another part just wanted answers, some kind of explanation for what she had done.  
  
“It was…something,” he hedged and shifted again, while glancing at the clock: 2 am.  
  
“You know, you had us worried,” Rick said quietly.  
  
Magnum gave him a cocky grin – the one he used when trying to deflect, he hated that he’d made them worry.  
  
“No, man, seriously. You do some stupid shit, no doubt. But this was a whole other level. Even Higgins was slowly losing it.”  
  
That got his attention. “What?”  
  
  
“The woman worries about you.”  
Magnum harrumphed before responding, “She…tolerates me, but I think she’s warming.”  
  
“Oh, you really are clueless, aren’t you? Higgins is as British as they come, buttoned up, unemotional to the outside world, likely thanks in part to that MI6 training. But she was…visibly shaken when you were missing and on that highway? Making sure you didn’t die before the ambulance got there? Rattled for sure, bordering panic.”  
  
Magnum frowned. “Higgins doesn’t panic.”  
  
Rick leaned forward. “I think you are underestimating how much she actually cares. About you.”  
  
He wasn’t sure what to do with Rick’s assessment, which he trusted without question, the man noticed…everything. And he was with Higgins when he was missing. Did she care more than she let on? Looking back on their hospital bedside conversation he started to suspect she did. Despite her prickly behavior when he’d first arrived at Robin’s nest, it seemed like he was slowly winning her over. His forays into the wine cellar or hitting golf balls onto the property were tactics meant to annoy and get a rise out of her. The repeated use of her laptop and contacts was in response to his realization that she took far more interest in his cases than expected, he’d gotten the sense that part of her missed the spy business, and bringing her in had brought out a side of Higgins he hadn’t seen since moving into the guest house.  
He might even say the cases had brought them closer as friends.  
  
Maybe he could even pry some more MI6 adventures out of her, he knew she was a badass but the Soviets? That was impressive.  
  
Suddenly a memory pushed through the fuzzy parts of his brain.  
  
_“You must be Juliet Higgins…Soviets…MI6…a threat.”_  
  
He sat up a little, hissing at the pain that radiated from his shoulder.  
  
“Hannah knew who Higgins was, knew she was MI6, even mentioned a very specific op.”  
  
Rick’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s…not great.”  
  
“Even called Higgins a threat.”  
  
“Getting worse, Thomas.”  
  
Icy terror started to flow through his veins at the thought that Hannah would try to get to him through Higgins.  
  
“She wouldn’t, though. Would she?” Rick questioned as if reading his mind. “Higgins is…very capable of taking care of herself.”  
  
That wasn’t the issue…exactly. “I know it’s just…it’s my fault Higgins is even on Hannah’s radar.”  
  
Rick pressed his lips together in an attempt not to smile. “So, you’re worried about her now. You know for two people who act like they just tolerate each other, you sure do an awful lot of worrying.”  
  
“I-“ Magnum started but was cut off when Rick stood, walked over to the bed and clicked the light off before returning to the chair, sinking into it.  
  
“Good night, Thomas.”  
  
“Good night, Rick,” he replied and closed his eyes.  
  
But sleep did not come easily.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it just me or does anyone else feel like maybe we will get a Higgins/Hannah fight at some point? That would be awesome.


End file.
